Neil W. McCabe is a journalist working in Washington.

Voting

04/28/2013

A federal lawsuit filed April 26 demands the court force two
Mississippi counties, with more registered voters than eligible residents, to purge
their voter rolls.

“We hope to get an affirmative ruling from this court, and
then proceed to other counties that have irregularities,” said Susan A.
Carleson, chairman of the Americans Civil Rights Union, which filed the suit in
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to compel the
voter roll cleanup in Jefferson Davis and Walthall counties.

“The goal is to ensure the integrity of the voting process,
without which we cannot continue as a self-governing nation,” she said.

Like hundreds around the nation, these two counties have
more active registered voters than there are voting age-eligible residents,
according to data from the U.S. Census and state voter registration offices,
she said.

According to the petition Jefferson Davis County has 10,078
active voters but only 9,536 age-eligible citizens.“More than 105 percent of living citizens old
enough to vote were registered to vote in Jefferson Davis County in 2013.”

Walthall County has
14,108 registered voters but only 11,368 age-eligible citizens, which means
that 124 percent of Walthall’s eligible voters are registered, according to the
suit.

The lawsuit, prepared for ACRU by three former Justice
Department attorneys: J. Christian
Adams, former DOJ Voting Section Chief, Christopher Coates and Henry Ross, also
requests that the court orders election officials from the two counties to
provide records and data for public inspection as required by Section 8 of the
National Voter Registration Act, the “Motor Voter Law.”

The two suits are part of the ACRU’s Election Integrity
Defense Project, among whose founders, former Atty. Gen Edwin Meese III, J.
Kenneth Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State, serve on boards for the
organization.